Love and What Is Needed for It Exist as Seen in Two Works

Love and what is needed for it exist as seen in two works

Love is a deep emotional feeling toward a person. Love comes in many forms, each being expressed in slightly different ways. There is the mothers love which she has for her child; a love of self, which aids in self preservation and self worth; there is love shared abroad to friends and family members; and love between a couple. Everyday we pass by people expressing affection and love, and partake in loving experiences with the people we encounter as well. People tend to think of love as just words, a term to signify devotion, many times this type of love disappears. The existence of true love stems further than just four letters, and a lack there of can be viewed using two literary pieces.

Love in my opinion can be defined as such: love is like a lamp post, it shines in the midst of darkness, it lights your paths, and helps you to find your way every time. Love is kind, a comforter. It is not selfish or self contained, love is not limited, love suffers long and bears all things; love never fails. A true evidence of love is action. Love motivates action; it causes you to be faithful, not losing

heart or changing your love. Love is not envious or resentful, but gentle and not easily provoked to anger. Love will cause you to act patiently. Without love none of those things would exist, life loses all meaning with a lack or loss of love, unfeeling and empty would be the state of each human being if love did not exist.

Wendy Wasserstein’s,” The Man in a case”, is a short scene about two engaged people, with strikingly distinct personalities. The setting of this scene is a small garden in the village of Mironiski, during 1898. The characters in this work are Byelinkov and Varinka. The relationship in which Byelinkov and Varinka share is rather peculiar and their motivations for engagement don’t seem to involve any aspect of love. Varinka is overly enthralled with marrying Byelinkov because she perceives him as a most adored school master; and Byelinkov is concerned with the irony of his infatuation with Varinka. He even says “…their instructor, who teaches them the discipline and contained beauty of the classics, is in love with a sprite” (Wasserstein pg 21).

They are content with the nonexistence of love in their relationship, Varinka says “until I met you I thought I would lie all my life and say I never married because I never met a man I loved. I will love you, Byelinkov. And I will help you to love me. We deserve the life everyone else has”. “We deserve not to be different” (Wasserstein pg 20). Varinka realizes that a life lacking love, is a life missing great meaning. Many people may think that Varinka’s proclamation to love Byelinkov a sign that she does not know real love, instead I see it as an acknowledgment that love is faithful, and she knows that over time, her care for him will grow and her desire to do all the things that signify love will flourish as well. She hopes that as she is treating Byelinkov in a loving way and he will in turn reciprocate and display love for her also.

C.S Lewis’ We Have No “Right to Happiness”, is an essay about the breaking up of two couples to pursue new relationships, the essay starts, “Mr. A. had deserted Mrs. A. and got his divorce in order to marry Mrs. B., who had likewise got her divorce in order to marry Mr. A. And there was certainly no doubt that Mr. A. and Mrs. B. were very much in love with one another” (Lewis pg 724). This incident spawned Lewis to think about the concept of a “right to happiness”, which is what Mr. A and Mrs. B. pursued. Although the neighbors of Mr. A. and Mrs. B. believe their relationship is coated in love I disagree, since their last marriages ended in divorce. Love involves an emotional investment and commitment and neither of them showed dedication toward their first spouses. Mrs. B’s husband fell ill after the war, and wasn’t of an able mind or body anymore, and that was the time he needed the manifestations of love the most. He needed his wife to be longsuffering, to bear him up, with patience, and support. But instead she left the relationship.

Mr. A’s first wife gave all she had. Love was not too expensive for her. She bore his children, took care of him when he fell ill over a long period of time, and was patient and honest. Albeit she committed suicide, but in the time before she took her life and before he divorced her, if he had any love for his wife then he would have been kind, a comfort to her, not selfish or self contained, his compassion would have kept her life. The fact that Mr. A. and Mrs. B. could give themselves in marriage, and live with their spouses for so many years and not display the characteristics of love shows that their’s is a